Yet another reason to ditch the RTO mandates: the traditional commute defies logic

When was the last time someone sat in endless gridlock or rushed to catch the train as part of their long, stressful morning commute to work and thought “Oh, this is nice?” When so many can now choose how and where they work, a long daily commute to a faraway office no longer makes sense. In fact, it defies logic.

The traditional daily commute from the suburbs to city centers drains workers’ productivity and wallets. Remove a long daily commute to a city center office and you’re looking at notable benefits to workers’ engagement, productivity, and bank balances, while also helping them to become healthier and happier. It’s also better for the planet. It raises the question of why anyone would choose to take on a traditional commute, or—more pointedly—why employers would still ask their people to do it.

Since founding International Workplace Group, which includes workspace brands including Regus and Spaces, 35 years ago, I have had a front-row seat to hybrid working. I can confidently say we’ve never been in a better position to embrace its benefits, as it relates to business and society in general.

Freeing people of a long, unproductive, and expensive journey that takes hours of the working day, and involves doing tasks that technology enables to be performed anywhere, can yield immediate boosts to employee productivity and happiness. This aids in slowing attrition and we all know the cost of losing top talent and hiring/training replacements. Our recent survey of HR leaders in the U.S. shows they attribute commute length and work/life balance as top reasons for employee turnover. Meanwhile, 72% of HR leaders believed offering an office close to employee’s homes would help improve retention.

To further quantify the value of working in a hybrid way, rather than trudging back and forth on a train or sitting in a traffic jam day in and day out, we collaborated with consultancy Development Economics. Our collective research revealed that more than three-quarters (76%) save on travel costs due to hybrid working and commuters could save up to $30,332 annually if they switch from commuting to a city center daily to working locally four days a week.

Gen Zs entering adulthood with marked inflation and more debt than generations prior stand to save even more. The ability to forgo a daily and costly commute to a city center office space could be the solution to making ends meet, getting or staying out of debt, or being able to save for a financial goal, like homeownership. Our analysis shows, for example, a 24-year-old Gen Z worker living in Red Bank, New Jersey, could save up to $388,320 throughout their working life by doing their job from their trendy downtown four days a week and commuting into Manhattan only once a week.

All of the great benefits we’re seeing from hybrid work are also echoed by academics. Renowned Stanford University professor Nicholas Bloom recently released a paper demonstrating that hybrid working has no negative impact on business performance. Quite the opposite. His research concluded businesses can see productivity increases of about 4%. Employee satisfaction also increased while resignation rates dropped, and his research found this was particularly true for supercommuters.

The rise of 15-minute cities and towns means that outlying boroughs are once again regaining their identities and are set for strong and sustained growth. A separate study by IWG and Arup recently estimated the number of skilled office workers based in U.S. commuter towns could rise by up to 60% over the next 20 years because of the model.

This is an incredibly positive trajectory, built on good old common sense. Remove the long arduous journeys out of these places and people put their energy back into them through their involvement, interaction, and essentially, investment.

Despite the data, there are and will be those who aren’t sold on the promise of localized or home working. But if the accepted definition of madness is to do the same thing over and over again while expecting different results, then the message to businesses and their people is clear. Get off the commuter train and reap the multifaceted rewards of a more local, productive, and balanced work life.

The office will always be relevant and important for company collaboration and culture, it’s just moved locations. And the good news is it’s much more likely to be located in the communities where people actually live and want to spend their time.